MEET THE DIRECTOR

VANESSA DOAK, Owner/Sr. Director

 “Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.”
– Mary Kay Ash

It is entirely possible that you may never meet another human being on the face of the Earth as passionate about something as Vanessa Doak is about camp. From the moment the diminutive powerhouse begins to speak about her own experiences as a young girl growing up with her parents and younger sister in the Toronto projects, she will have you hooked by her sincerity, warmth, and enthusiasm.

“Growing up in low-income housing in Toronto meant I had to be resourceful. Certainly I had fewer advantages compared to my peers, fewer opportunities,” she said. “But along the way I met the right people, people who saw me from a heart-centred place, people who saw opportunities for me – and it’s that energy that I bring to the camp work that I do.

“I want to create opportunities for kids to shine in whatever environment they come from. I want to help them fly. I want them to soar.”

COMING TO ‘CAMP’

From the tender age of five, Vanessa was enrolled in sponsored summer day camps that lasted one or two weeks. A self-described “tom boy,” Vanessa loved her camp experiences collecting (and sometimes bringing home) frogs, playing ball, and generally carousing with her pals – most of which were boys.

By the time she was 11, Vanessa was ready for sleep-away camp. But it wasn’t until she was getting settled that she realized she was at an all-girl camp.

“It basically changed the course of my life in incredible, heart-opening ways.”

From camp counselor to camp director, Vanessa forged life-long relationships that not only shaped her growth as an adolescent but also charted the course of her studies, career trajectory, and where she would eventually make her home. (Spoiler: It’s Squamish with her husband Darren and young twins.)

Two pivotal relationships unlocked something inside Vanessa that would have a ripple effect far out into the world – an effect Vanessa simply calls “camp.”

“When I met my counselor Jamie Hargraves, I couldn’t believe it. She was the coolest girl ever, active and positive, and did whatever she wanted. Lo and behold she totally took me under her wing.

“Jamie had so much patience and compassion for me. I was such a troublemaker but when I was having a hard time she would take me for a walk down to the shore, and she would snuggle me and talk to me. I wasn’t very open at that age, but I could talk to her about anything,” she said. “I probably should’ve been sent home, but thankfully the camp director Jay Haddad was also a psychology professor. He just totally understood. People come into your life at the right times – and these two literally saved my life.”

It was around the campfire at the side of the lake that Vanessa was introduced to a concept that would ultimately propel her through many challenges she faced in adolescence. Challenges she recognizes bear universality for all children as they transition into adulthood.

“Jay used to share with us that quote of the bumblebee that flies against the odds of gravity at the beginning of each session – and it’s something I held very close to my heart as I grew up. It helped me believe in myself time and time again. When people would put me down, or tell me I couldn’t do something, or when the odds were stacked against me, this is the message I kept going back to.”

After experiencing such rich and transformative connections, Vanessa was up against a harsh reality: kids who received sponsored summer camp opportunities, were not able to return to the same camp year to year.

“You were never sent back to the same camp, and frankly that’s where the camp experience really helps a child flourish – the deepening of relationships, the leadership opportunities, the growth,” she explains. “I believe if you’re going to sponsor kids to camp, you sponsor them and they get to go as long as they want to go, or until they become a leader and end up working there. They need to have that consistency and the relationship building that comes with camp. You can’t be moving them around every year.

“I’m very passionate about ‘campership,’ that’s a huge component of my ‘why.’ Why I do everything I do. Campership is crucial, to be able to afford kids the opportunity to go to camp that otherwise can’t afford it. It’s a must.”

When she returned home, Vanessa remembers locking herself in her room for days and crying, especially when she turned the radio on and heard popular songs that had been sung around the campfire. (“In my 11-year-old mind I actually thought that it was them on the radio singing those songs,” she laughs, tears running down her cheeks, “like Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl.”)

As luck – or fate – would have it, the camp director’s son attended her new junior high school and the two reconnected during the first week back at school. Jay took her under his wing and in short order met with Vanessa’s father and social worker and pledged to have her return to camp for as many years as she wanted to attend. Almost every subsequent year she was placed in Jamie’s cabin, and by 15 she was a leader in training (LIT).

GUIDING LIGHT

That paternal relationship with Jay continued to blossom and influenced Vanessa in attaining her social work degree.

Just after Vanessa was accepted to Ryerson University, her own father, with whom she shared a deep friendship, passed away. But she persevered. Vanessa earned a couple of scholarships for the first year, but beyond that put herself through school while caring for her mom and younger sister. Two years later the girls lost their mother as well.

It was at that time that Jay Haddad became Vanessa’s guiding light.

“He was everything to me. He was the camp director, he was my boss, he was my best friend, and he became my dad. The fact that he was a psychology professor was a gift – everything I was interested in, he and I would talk about… Gandhi, Jane Elliot, people who change the world.”

With Jay’s support Vanessa lobbied her department for the opportunity to use her placement as a chance to develop a leadership program for the camp that could be run throughout the year – and one she utilizes to this day in her own programming. The work she did was anti-oppression based and addressed issues like racism, homophobia, creeds and religions and the controversy around them, politics, sexism, and ableism.

“I had to work really hard and fight with university to get them to let me do that, I didn’t want to work in social work the way you typically do. I wanted to apply it to being a camp director. I want to take all that knowledge and raise consciously aware individuals.

“I don’t want to have kids just come to camp and just learn how to tie knots, I want them to walk away having learnt some of the bigger ideas in life.”

Vanessa became even more passionate as she worked her way through university, about creating opportunities for children of all socio-economic backgrounds and developed successful “campership” programs – foundations for camps to be able to provide consistent, year-to-year childhood opportunities for camping through donors. You can read more about that here.

Through her camp connections, Vanessa was introduced to Squamish’s Summit Camp director Geoff Park and she made the move to B.C., where she also reconnected with former camp counsellor and mentor Jamie, who works with sled dogs north of Squamish. Vanessa took a position with Camp Summit as the LIT Director and became responsible for ‘office management’ and especially, campership. Thanks to yet another incredible mentor and Camp Director, Vanessa was given the opportunity to continue to grow as a leader in so many ways. She was able to thrive in her leadership development role as well as help raise funds contributing to the ability for many local Squamish children to attend camp, whoever otherwise couldn’t afford to do so and learn the ‘business side’ of camp - which in her life today has become extremely important.

Following the birth of twins Mackenzie and Axel, born in 2015, Vanessa began creating her own camp programs – without a physical camp, an issue she is looking to remedy.

“I’ve always known I was going to have my own camp ever since I was young, but I didn’t think it would happen this quickly. I thought maybe my kids would at least be in school! Then I started noticing things, relationships between people in the community and where I could affect positive change, and the passion just flooded me.

“I have a much bigger passion now because I’m a mom,” Vanessa said. “I want my kids to be proud of me. I want them to look up to me and see this woman who changed the world, or at least changed a small part of it. I want my daughter to see that you can be a mom, and also be a strong, powerful woman who is following her dreams. I want my son to see the importance of working with boys and communicating your emotions.

“I want to raise them in camp. That’s a huge ‘why’ for me. I want my kids to see me in the camp light, too, because the ‘camp Vanessa’ is the best Vanessa.”

Spend five minutes with her and you’ll know this to be true. There’s a light that shines from Vanessa Doak that’s hard to ignore. Her positivity, compassion, enthusiasm, and bumblebee spirit is everything you’d want to bottle for yourself.

But for Vanessa it comes down to one simple thing:

“If you can turn your passion into a job – and I have – then you’ll be happy for the rest of your life. For me it’s all about making a positive difference in the lives of children and adults, to help create a world where we can support one another through our differences and rise to the ‘top’ together.”